Bordered by three oceans, Canada's Navy has always needed ships and crew who could brave the harshest of seas to enforce her sovereignty and protect her freedom... they are the Tin-Can Canucks and this book is about them.

Production: When the Writing is Done

Part of what I want to be able to blog about while Tin-Can Canucks is being developed, is the process behind writing, publishing and promoting a small-press book here in Canada. Today’s Production note is about what happens after the first draft is completed.

Well it’s official, I’ve finished the first draft of Tin-Can Canucks–the writing is done. It’s time for a nice relaxing bottle of scotch and several days away from the laptop (if possible). As you might imagine there’s a pretty impressive feeling of success–but it’s no time to rest on (non-existent) laurels; the hard work of copy editing this beast is about the start.

Thankfully I’m not doing it.

I have a first-class copy editor who will be going through the book and picking out spelling errors, inconsistencies and other such flaws. Once she’s done, I tackle the manuscript again–after a break of several weeks, so I have a fresh perspective when I com back to it.

Assuming all goes well, we should be ready to send the manuscript off for a proof, once the cover art is completed–more on that soon!

EDIT: Editing took a lot longer than I expected, and even then there were issues needing resolution after I went through the printed proof twice. It’s actually taken us several months of back and forth, editing the material, adding and then editing additional relevant content to provide context to some of the content already there–and for a work like this ongoing documentation of the sources of the information in the book is its own challenge.

Thankfully we are now done. The most difficult parts are behind us and now things get really exciting. More on that soon.